determined by whether the rhizomes or the fronds were utilised. An infu-
sion of the rhizomes was valued as a mild laxative in Classical medicine, and
it was perhaps from that source that it persisted in use into the last century in
Donegal,^36 just as in adjacent Londonderry^37 a decoction of the fronds, much
favoured in official herbalism for coughs and colds, lingered on as a mixture
with liquorice for remedying the severer kinds of those and asthma. Both
parts of the plant, however, feature in a marked cluster of records from
Cavan,^38 spilling across into Leitrim,^39 for application to burns or scalds.
In Britain the rhizomes are said to have persisted in use for an unspecified
Pteridophytes and Conifers 59Polypodium vulgare, polypody
(Fuchs 1543, fig. 334)